


To Know How the Story Ends

by FalseRoar



Series: Traces of Silver [4]
Category: A Heist With Markiplier (Web Series), Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Deaf Character, Death, Drowning, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mark Fischbach Egos, MerMay 2020, POV Third Person, Sea Monsters, Sirens, shark attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalseRoar/pseuds/FalseRoar
Summary: A ship and crew on the run from the threat chasing after them risk a dangerous stretch of water, only to run aground when almost everyone on the ship is entranced by a strange sound. Only one crew member who cannot hear the enchanting song is aware that something is deeply wrong here, his warnings unheeded as he watches his crew fall one by one to something lurking in the waters below.This is a side story within the same alternate universe as the other stories in this series, where monsters and the hunters that chase them are very real, and very deadly.
Series: Traces of Silver [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709179
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	To Know How the Story Ends

The captain was a proud man, but more than that, he was a desperate one. The crew didn’t know where the map hidden away in his chambers would lead them, but the rumors of what awaited them flew fast and thick, same as the knowledge that the map’s previous owner wouldn’t just let the theft go unpunished. To reach their reward, they first had to rid themselves of the specter that followed just a few days behind by even the most hopeful of estimates.

That may have been why they did not question the captain’s decision to sail for the Dire Straits, a stretch of water that had more than earned its name with the number of ships lost to the narrow strip of water. But the rare ship that passed through safely could cut weeks if not months off of a journey that would otherwise mean sailing the long way around the stretches of land to either side, and with the right captain and the right crew, and just the right wind to catch the sails, ships did make it through.

But this was not the right captain and not the right crew for this journey, and the wind that pushed them on toward the small stretch of water that navigated between two equally sheer, lifeless cliff walls that towered over the ship, toward the shards of rock that reached up out of the roiling waves like grasping fingers, had something deeply wrong in it.

The sound carried by the breeze caught the captain’s ears first, urging him to encourage the crew to press on, filling him with a confidence that seemed to spread out to his first mate and then to the others. All except for one, whose focus was on the nearest ropes that reached up to the sail overhead. He looked to his mate for confirmation of what needed to be done, but the other man stood where he left him by the railing, his eyes unfocused as the rope in his hands played out on its own.

The crew member called to him, but there was still no response, and when he looked around the ship, he saw that the others had similar vacant expressions. Even the captain stood still, his hand against the mast as he stared out at the rocks ahead that the wind and the waves were relentlessly driving them toward. The entire ship moved forward silently, almost every person aboard enraptured by the sound that one of them could not hear.

Just as he could not hear the scrape of the rock against the bow, or the groan of the timbers that strained and buckled against the unyielding pillar they struck next. He could only feel the shivers that ran up through the ship before it ground to a stop, pinned between two towering rocks weathered by wave and wind.

He stumbled, as did the rest of the crew aboard, and like that the spell was broken. As he looked around, he saw the confusion on his fellow sailors’ faces, the panic and jumbled swears that rolled off their lips as the state of the ship dawned on them.

Then it was madness and chaos, as some ran below to check for leaks while others ran to the sides, desperately checking for damage and more importantly, any possible way to free the ship from its death grip.

He turned to his mate, but there was no understanding there when he demanded an explanation for why everyone had just stood there, frozen. Entranced. Instead, he was brushed off and told to help with the sail—they had to get it down now, before it could be pressed by the wind to do any more damage.

Reluctantly, he followed, hands working the ropes with a confidence born from many years on the sea, while his eyes strayed over the deck, searching for some kind of answer to what he had seen.

Instead, he saw the man standing alone at the fore of the ship, seemingly unnoticed by any of the other sailors as he stared down over the side, the stillness of the figure among so many others moving catching his eye just in time to see the man walk off the ship.

He cried out, letting go of the sail as he ran toward the railing and peered down into the swirling, dark waters down below. There was a sense of movement just below the surface of the water, but by the time the others joined him at the railing there was still no sign of the man.

They did, however, see the fins that crested the waters before diving back down again.

Sharks.

It made sense—the passage was no doubt friendlier to schools of fish moving along the current, and more than likely making homes among the fallen ships that had attempted and failed this passage before. Making it a prime hunting ground for the larger predators who now circled the ship, curious about the new intruder in their waters.

He looked to the captain, who was speaking to the crew now, where he read words of calm and encouragement on his lips. The ship may have been pinned, but the damage below decks was minimal. If they worked through the day and the night, there was still a chance they could use the timbers down below to push their way back and then around the rocks. There would be damage to be dealt with later, yes, but they could still outrace the ship that followed behind and make it to safe harbor on the other side.

Better to try than to wait for the vengeance that was coming for them.

It wasn’t a prospect that any of them wanted to consider, and so they set to work instead.

In the flurry of activity that took place on the ship, it was easy to miss the absence of one sailor or two, or more. No one noticed the dwindling numbers as night fell, attributing it to a familiar face being on another part of the ship, above or below decks, or taking their shift to rest when they could get it. They would need every hand when the morning came and with it the time to try to free the ship and try again, a maneuver they could not risk in the darkness.

With lantern in hand, one crew member walked the deck in search of the hammer left behind earlier and paused when he saw one of the others again, standing near the railing. Heart in his throat, he called out to them, but there was no sign the other heard him. The man at the railing’s shoulders were relaxed, head swaying softly back and forth as though listening to some song down below before he suddenly lifted one foot and braced it against the railing.

Again, the sailor cried out and ran forward, one hand almost reaching the man’s jacket before he went over the edge. He held his lantern out, the light casting a glow on the icy black waters down below.

And upon the figure who greeted the falling sailor with open arms, waiting to drag him into those depths.

In the flickering light of the lantern, that strangely human and yet not face turned up toward the ship, lips moving in incomprehensible syllables as he soothed the struggling sailor in his glistening wet arms, while dark eyes met the figure left standing up above with a cruel smile.

Then they were both gone, disappearing beneath the waves with only a single stream of bubbles rising up in their wake which stopped far too soon.

He tried to tell the others, to warn them of what he had seen, but they laughed at first, before growing grim. He wasn’t sure whose idea it was, to lock him in the brig down below where the water had reached nearly knee high despite efforts to bail out the lower decks, only that he soon found himself standing alone in the darkness, leaning on the metal cage for support and praying that they were right, that his eyes had deceived him in the darkness.

He stood there, dozing on and off for the rest of the night until just before dawn. He hadn’t heard the creaking footsteps overhead, or the slosh of water, only seen the light that accompanied the captain himself as he approached the cell’s door with keys in hand. The lantern cast strange shadows on the captain’s face, and despite his questions the captain’s lips did not move in response.

It wasn’t until the door was open that he recognized the same, glassy-eyed expression in his captain’s face that he had seen before, the look of someone listening to a sound far away.

He reached out, shook the captain by the shoulder and shouted, but it did nothing to remove the spell. Instead, he was dragged by his captain up the steps and out into the fresh air of the deck, where he found all was still.

There had been no one else down below, no shadows or the vibrations of footsteps on the boards beneath his feet besides those of the captain, and there was not a single soul to be seen as the captain led him across the deck, past the steering and the mast and toward the fore of the ship.

Seeing where they were going, the man struggled again and to his surprise, the captain released him and just stood there, a faint smile on his lips as though listening to some long-forgotten melody.

And then the captain began to lurch forward, in the same march to his death that the rest of his crew had taken. The sailor tried to stop him, to pull him back, but the captain was a strong man, made stronger by the obsession that drove him toward the waves below.

At the railing he paused, and for a moment the sailor had hope until he saw the captain turn toward him with those same, empty eyes, as he read the words on his lips.

_“I want to know how the story ends.”_

He tried, but in the blink of an eye he was alone. The last soul remaining on this trapped ship, with no hope of escape.

When he gathered the will to look over the side, there was no sign of the captain. Red stained the dark waters below, but that may have been from the sun rising on the horizon, turning the seas scarlet around the figure floating down below. A human chest and arms, a human enough face that might have been handsome even if not for the cold and cruel eyes or the smile that revealed waiting jaws which moved in an unheard song.

Beckoning him to join the others, to leap into the waiting arms of the creature down below, or, perhaps, into the shifting and billowing mass of tentacles he could clearly now see made up its lower half, like that devourer the kraken.

Down below, the siren watched his prey with interest. It wasn’t often he came across a human that could ignore his call. He wanted to take this last stray, to rip its story from it like he had all of the others, to pry the voice from their jaws along with whatever else he desired before leaving the rest for the remorseless hunger of the sharks drawn in by this uncommon feast.

He waited patiently as the shadow above dipped out of sight, well aware of the choice that awaited the man above thanks to his former crewmates. Freeing the ship now was not an option, and the siren had made sure that the lifeboat was destroyed during the night, not that it would have done him any good.

No, he could either face what was waiting for him down below, or wait and pray for mercy from the man who followed them. At best, he could hope for a short life of servitude there; at worst?

He could be the bait to draw in yet another feast for those down below.

Better to try then, if only to save those who followed after.

The siren could have laughed when he saw the sailor approach the railing once again and begin tying a rope to the wood there. In fact, he did, watching with delight as the sailor, with the other end of the rope tied fast around his waist, began to rappel down the side of the ship.

The laughter died when the man stopped just out of his reach and turned to stab out at the creature in the water with a very lethal and very sharp spear in hand. The siren dodged, but with feet braced against the side of the ship and one hand on the rope anchoring him, the sailor stabbed again and again, catching the side of the siren and releasing a scream that sent all of the creatures below scattering.

The sound didn’t bother the sailor though, and as dark, grasping tentacles lashed out of the water to grasp at his feet, he released the rope and used his last effort to stab again, this time catching the siren in the face.

Blinded, the siren screamed again, the screeching cacophony drowning out the snap of the rope as the sailor was pulled under. In a rage, he started to tear at the man only to be knocked away by something large and moving fast. Rough skin tore at his own as the beast grazed past him, and the siren reached toward his marred face as understanding dawned.

The sharks.

The siren moved fast, tentacles grasping at the underside of the boat and finding the leverage to move him up out of the water and up the side of the boat with a speed that would have terrified, if there had been any crew left behind to witness the sight. Something brushed his hands and he grasped the other half of the sailor’s rope, his lifeline as he painfully pulled himself up the rest of the way and onto the safety of the ship’s deck where he lay there, fully exposed in the growing sunlight.

A pool of blood mixed with the water gathering around his body as he shuddered and gasped, hands slowly reaching toward the wound on his side and then, with a shiver and a cry of pain, the devastation wrought upon his eyes.

He needed to stop the bleeding.

The memories of the crew guided him as he used his arms and dark grasping tentacles to slowly and painfully crawl across the deck like some pathetic, bloated spider. Narrow halls not built for his size hindered his progress down below, but eventually he found the medical supplies and did what he could for his side and his eyes, hands clumsy with nothing to guide them.

And then he waited.

The bandages had to be changed again, and again as the day progressed, but while his side eventually clotted like it should, there seemed to be nothing to stop the steady stream that ran from his torn eyes when there wasn’t a bandage to hold it back.

His hands shook as he replaced the bandages yet again, as the only part of the man’s story that he had been able to take came back to him. Or rather, was given to him, as the sailor struck out with the curse on his lips, with all the fury and grief of a man who saw his own death coming after everyone else he knew was gone.

Leaving the siren blind, but more than that, never healing. If he returned to the water now, the same sharks he had fed before would gladly turn on him, and he could not hold them off forever.

He was trapped here, in the very ship that he had run aground.

In the darkness of another night, the realization dawned on the wounded creature hiding in the ship that had become its prison.

There were others, who would be here soon. If they found him like this, there was no guarantee he could entrance them all, not in this condition. All it would take is another sailor like that one or one with the will to resist even for a moment, and he would be dead, or worse, gagged and bound for some other cruel purpose.

But there was another option, one he would never have considered before but now, with the sea possibly forever out of his reach and doom riding in on the current…

Well, better to try than to wait any longer.

—

When they found the empty and silent vessel, they were not surprised. This was hardly the first ship to have been left, abandoned and hopeless in Dire Straits.

They were surprised to find a survivor, huddled below decks who called out when he heard them coming. He was dressed in ill-fitting clothes, stained by the wound on his side and the terrible bandages wrapped around his eyes, and pulled his large overcoat close as he shivered in the air when they took him above deck.

They practically had to carry him, as despite there being nothing visibly wrong with his legs, he walked as though every step he took pained him greatly, leaving him gasping and shaking by the time they brought him before their captain.

“And who might you be? Our host for this wonderful gathering?” the captain asked, his voice a growl somewhere high above. The floorboards creaked beneath his weight, and he moved with the air of a giant towering above all around him.

“Your…Host,” said their captive with a flicker of a smile around his lips, already recognizing the appropriateness of the name. His words flowed with a harmony of many voices, and had it not been so lulling to those who heard it, they might have recognized some of those voices as belonging to the crew who once manned this vessel. Instead, to their ears the melody of voices sounded natural, unquestionable even if it lacked the power it had in his true form. It was still enough to give him the confidence that he could turn this twist of fate to his advantage as he continued, “Is just a prisoner, a captive held by the cruel men who abused and tormented him before leaving him upon this cursed vessel. Please, Captain, this Host can tell you where they hid what was stolen from you, if you will only take him to shore where he may find his way home.”

That confidence which wavered as the Captain stood silent and impassive before him until at last he spoke with a deadly calm.

“And what else may ye be willin’ to offer?”

“Else?”

“Aye, for passage on me ship. You know what they say, there ain’t no such thing as a free ride.”

The Host paused, realizing that for the second time in almost as many days, his words were failing to have an effect. He had never had to rely on anything else in his existence before, and weakly he answered, “A song?”

“Well, a sea shanty is well and good, but…”

The Host winced as he had to step back, bracing himself as a large hand shook his shoulder with a laugh.

“Heh. Well, we’ll see how good ye are at scrubbing the deck, and then we’ll go from there. Come on, now, the wind won’t be waiting for us to catch up, now will it?”

With a massive arm around his shoulders, the Host was guided forward to the other ship, with the sinking realization that he may have just traded one prison for another. He stumbled, still unused to two legs, or to the sensation of knives digging into his feet with every terrible step. Blindly, he moved forward, because it was the only choice he had left.

To wait and find out for himself how the story ends.


End file.
